AXPONA 2014: Purist Audio Design goes Luminist

I get the distinct feeling that Jim Aud of Purist Audio Design has been making audio cables since before I was born. I’ve had the pleasure of having a set of his Praesto Revision cables from the affordable Corvus Line for the last several months, and they’re remarkable. The build quality is superb, and I’ve been using them in my reference system to spectacular effect.

Today, I got to see the latest, the Luminist Revision.

Luminist replaces the Praesto and adds several advantages. One, you might have heard that Aud has been leveraging liquid Ferox as part shield and part dampener for years in his designs, and this year, Luminist brings a new iteration that he calls Ferox 13, which he claims lowers the noise floor a measurable 1dB. The insulation in this Revision is halved over the outgoing series, which brings the capacitance way down — and, more importantly to me, brings the size way down, too. The Praesto cables were very clearly weaponizable, and the new downscaling makes the lineup much more reasonable to use and handle.

This Revision is a clean-slate redesign, says Aud, and includes all manner of refined bits including a user-swappable connector on the speaker cables. Just need the one speaker cable, and screw in or out the banana or spade you want with no re-termination. Man, I wish more speaker cable guys did this. The power cord pins, spade lugs, RCA connectors, bananas and XLR pins all use brand new materials, too, and the new connectors sport carbon fiber barrels. All the cables are treated with an improved cryo process.

I know that there are a lot of you, shaking your head at all this technology and process for what is, essentially, “just wire”. I can’t tell you exactly what matters and what doesn’t, but I can tell you that Purist Audio Design cables are excellent, have outstanding build quality, and help my reference system sound great. More on that soon, as I have a now outdated review that’s on the way. Whoops.

Anyway, Jim and his daughter Kim were on hand helping out with the Classic Audio room that featured their new cable release. The big Classic Audio Project 1.4 horn-hybrid ($36,500/pair) were driven by the classic-but-upgraded-to-current-spec Novacrons from Atma-Sphere and fronted by Atma-Sphere electronics. The sound was big, dynamic and romantic sounding, fully realizing that big-speaker room mastery with plenty of swing and bounce that I’ve been happy to enjoy at previous shows.